Safe Harbor benefits from Super Fun Saturday event

Amber Galant, ninth-grader at Gatlinburg-Pittman High School and member of 4-H, gives out 4-H information during the Super Fun Saturday event at Catlettsburg Elementary.

Robbie Hargett

Diantha Currier of the Sevierville Sunrise Rotary club prepares to toss a toilet paper roll into an empty toilet — one of the club's hosted games at the event at Catlettsburg.

Robbie Hargett

Bill Chretien of Tommy Hilfiger of Tanger Five Oaks talks to people about one of their favorite subjects: ice cream.

SEVIERVILLE —

The Safe Harbor Child Advocacy Center teamed up with other organizations to bring Sevier County children a day of extra fun.

Super Fun Saturday, held at Catlettsburg Elementary School, came about when employees from the Tommy Hilfiger store in Tanger Five Oaks wanted to do something philanthropic while the store was temporarily closed for remodeling.

"We needed to do something with our staff, so we decided to do some charitable things since we didn't have a store to work out of," said Dwight Stitt, manager of the store.

They sat down with representatives from Safe Harbor and bounced ideas around until they came up with Super Fun Saturday, an event for the community.

"It's a combination of community outreach and education dealing mainly with families and children," said Tom Newman, program development director for Safe Harbor. "It's a fun day for kids."

The event featured a bounce house, inflatable slide, corn-hole, miniature golf, face-painting, arts and crafts, as well as some less recognizable "Rotary games." Kids and adults alike could be seen tossing toilet paper into an empty toilet.

"One of the most famous games is the toilet-paper toss," said David Reller of Sevierville Sunrise Rotary. "The kids love this. They've been having a blast."

Various local organizations also set up booths to disseminate information.

"This is a good event for the kids to burn off energy, but we hope they will take the time to go to the booths and pick up information," Newman said.

Admission to the event was free, but concessions were sold and donations accepted for Safe Harbor. Many of the attractions were donated, as were items for the silent auction.

"The silent auction is doing really well," Newman said. "I didn't anticipate many people coming to a free event with money, but they're bidding."

Newman and Stitt agreed that they'd like to put on the same event next year.

"It was quite an undertaking for our staff, but we learned a lot from it and I think we could do it even when (Tommy Hilfiger) is open," Stitt said.